BMRC-FOCAS Mellon Interns Attend Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI)

The 2025-2026 cohort of BMRC-FOCAS Community Archives interns had a spectacular time at the Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI) Conference, held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from July 20-24, 2026. The annual conference brings together archival educators, researchers, and students from all over the world, providing a vital space for scholarly exchange and professional development. For the BMRC-FOCAS interns, attending AERI offered an opportunity to onboard them into the profession of archives. Interns were able to present original research based on their hands-on community archives work at BMRC member institutions and engage with the broader archival studies field.

Lisa Ryou, a recent graduate from the MLIS program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne presented a paper on her work with oral histories at the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) in Chicago. Her paper, titled “Community Archives, Public Housing, and the Roots of Urban Inequality,” explored how community archives rooted in public housing can serve as critical tools for understanding interconnected urban issues, including education, public schooling, and systemic inequality. Drawing on the NPHM’s extensive oral history collection, which currently includes over 180 interviews documenting the experiences of public housing residents across generations, developments, and neighborhoods, Lisa examined how resident-generated narratives can reshape dominant accounts of urban inequality in Chicago. Her paper argued that by foregrounding community archives as sites of knowledge production, archivists and researchers can surface the underlying structural frameworks that shape policy, space, and opportunity across the city.

Jennie Weng, also a recent graduate from the MLIS program at the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne presented a poster on her work at the Haitian American Museum of Chicago (HAMOC). Her poster, titled “Archives in Transition and the Work of Community-Centered Stewardship,” presented a practice-based case study of HAMOC's institutional transition during its first relocation to a permanent building in 2025. Jennie's research centered on a question facing many grassroots memory institutions: how can a community’s history be moved, housed, and preserved without dedicated storage infrastructure? Through a hands-on preservation workshop, field studies at three peer community museums, and an expert consultation, she developed a transferable toolkit of low-cost, high-impact preservation and storage strategies tailored to the realities of under-resourced institutions. Her work highlighted that community itself functions as preservation infrastructure, with knowledge, equipment, and expertise sustained through pro bono networks of reciprocity.

Kirk Stephens (MLIS, Chicago State University), Doxey Kamara (MLIS, UIUC), and Ellie Younger (MLIS, UIUC) jointly presented a poster titled “R(epresentation) O(utreach) P(reservation) E(ngagement) R(eciprocity): The ROPER Model for Community Mapping,” which took first place, winning the Best Poster Award at the AERI 2026 Conference. It synthesized the lessons learned from their work at three Chicago-area community archives: Kirk worked with Movin’ Legacy, documenting the contributions of Black dancers, choreographers, and movement artists to African and African diaspora dance traditions; Doxey worked with the Shorefront Legacy Center, supporting digital preservation and interactive map visualizations of the Evanston, Illinois area; and Ellie worked with the Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM) at Honey Pot Performance, increasing the accessibility and usability of their digital community archives.

Their poster introduced the ROPER Model as a framework that archivists and scholars can reference when mapping community histories. Emphasizing Representation, Outreach, Preservation, Engagement, and Reciprocity, the model offers a way to weave community records and histories into interactive maps and timelines alongside the community itself, collaboratively braiding them into a living, interactive history.

Attending AERI was an opportunity for interns to become better acquainted with the field of Archival Studies. The 2025-2026 cohort demonstrated the depth and impact of the BMRC-FOCAS program, bringing original, community-centered research to one of the field’s premier scholarly conferences. The Best Poster Award earned by Kirk, Doxey, and Ellie is a testament to the quality of work that FOCAS interns produce and the meaningful connections they build between academic research and community practice. Learn more about the Mellon Foundation funded BMRC FOCAS program on our website: https://bit.ly/4cLqbFI